Price Research: Our research indicates that this 250GB Samsung 840 Series 2.5" SATA Internal Solid State Drive with Notebook/Desktop Installation Kit (MZ-7TD250KW) is $25 lower (14% savings)than the next best available price from a reputable merchant with prices starting from $175. - brisar

we can also note the very low write speeds for the TLC-equipped Samsung 840.

Quote
from hardocp
:

The voltages we recorded with the Samsung 840 are higher than the Samsung 840 Pro across the board, and also exhibit one of the highest idle voltages that we have witnessed. This is probably due to some hefty background processes to handle the TLC NAND. The only area where the Samsung 840 performed admirably was in the Startup voltage, which came in at a very low 1.13W.

The random write voltage was unsurprisingly very high, and the sequential write voltage requirement is also on the high end. With this being a relatively new SSD, with its TLC destined to begin producing more errors over the life of the drive, we would expect these power consumption figures to grow over the life of the SSD. Even with these relatively 'fresh' readings we feel that this would not be the best SSD for mobile applications.

Quote
from hardocp
:

The low write speed offered with the Samsung 840 Series is going to be a concern for some users. It is especially important that users with moderate to heavy write workloads carefully weigh other options before making the jump to a TLC SSD. The low write speed will be an immediate problem in large file transfer situations, and endurance will be a long-term problem. It is also important to note that the 120GB model of this SSD only has a sequential write speed of 130MB/s and random read IOPS of 32,000, significantly lower than the lackluster write performance that we observed today in our testing.

Including a thermal pad for the controller would help to keep the device cool. We would like to see thermal pads with this SSD when we take the higher power consumption figures from TLC NAND into consideration.

Our steady state testing essentially places a workload upon the SSD until it is forced to begin running the internal management routines and garbage collection during actual usage. This is especially important with this type of NAND as it is definitely going to experience far more data errors than MLC over time. This will create increasing overhead for the MDX controller over the lifetime of the device. The read speed degradation that we observed is worrisome due to the fact that the increasing error rates can trigger these drive management routines, in effect creating read speed degradation in lower usage scenarios than with MLC NAND.

The extreme loss of write performance in steady state in our Iometer testing can also be a sign of long term performance issues in steady state as the NAND ages.

91 Comments

Been seeing these deals for the 840 pop up like crazy lately - I'm tempted to get it, but not sure if I really need one? I'm on a mid-09 Macbook Pro and its been running kinda slow lately - I need to clear some space off the stock 160HDD, but upgrading to a SSD that's almost twice the size would probably do the trick.

Can anyone comment on how this will affect normal laptop use on a day-to-day basis? If I'm using my laptop for mostly web surfing, MS Word, streaming some Netflix, and iTunes as a student - and my primary need is more space, should I bother installing a SSD? It'll definitely be a softer blow to the wallet if I just upgrade to a bigger, faster HDD - but with how often I hear people raving about SSD speed - I can't decide. Somebody want to help out a poor college kid with some advice?

An ssd will boot your mbp crazy-fast. And your programs launch within a second or two. You can use the stock hd as an external backup device now.
This is what i bought to put the stock hd in: http://www.amazon.com/Vantec-NexS...B002JQNXZC

You won't find a negative review from anybody that has actually tried it. Like most things online, there are a lot of people complaining and writing about things that they have no actual clue about. It is faster, slimmer, and has no likely compatibility issues upgrading from 7. If you don't like Metro, then install ClassicShell and you have a very much upgraded version of 7. On top of being optimized, there are also quite a few perks for power users and basic users alike (ReFS, Storage Spaces, Hyper-V, full RDP8.0...).

Right. Because no one who reviews Windows 8 negatively actually tried it. Sound logic to be sure.

To anyone interested in Win8, I'd say Snives just made it completely clear he's not going to give you a fair review of Win 8. Anyone who dismisses negative reviews with the lame (and so easily falsified*) statement "they haven't actually tried it" more or less exemplifies the concept of a "fanboi."

PS This is not a commentary on Win8, which has its fans and its detractors, just on Snives' grossly biased take.

*"A long story made short. Windows 8 might be (emphasis on might be) useful on tablets or systems with touch screens. I found it to be a step backward from Windows 7 when I installed it on a mouse/keyboard based systems. I installed Windows 8 the first day it became available and I used it for a couple of weeks. I did the education steps including finding shut down, adding apps and understanding navigation but found Windows 8 cumbersome to use. I have reinstalled Windows 7 and I am now waiting for Windows 9 (or 10)."

"Update 14 Jan 13: I've been using Windows 8 for more than a month now and it was originally annoying but stable especially when coming out of sleep and hibernation, but after numerous updates it's morphed into an unstable mess. It becomes unstable when the display has been turned off by the computer for longer than 4 hours or when coming out of sleep or hibernation, becoming generally unresponsive to most actions and usually requires a reboot 70% of the time. I can manage to reboot using CTL ALT DEL to access the reboot option but have given up on trying to save any work because they usually get corrupted. When in use the OS is very stable though. At this point I'm trying to decide on dropping back to Windows 7 or moving on to Linux."

Can anyone comment on how this will affect normal laptop use on a day-to-day basis? If I'm using my laptop for mostly web surfing, MS Word, streaming some Netflix, and iTunes as a student - and my primary need is more space, should I bother installing a SSD? It'll definitely be a softer blow to the wallet if I just upgrade to a bigger, faster HDD - but with how often I hear people raving about SSD speed - I can't decide. Somebody want to help out a poor college kid with some advice?

I recently (1 mo) installed one of these in my late-2009 Macbook Pro (very similar to yours) and it's been amazing. If you're still at the stock 2 or 4 GB RAM, go to the max of 8 GB while you've got the bottom of the laptop taken off. For ~$200 you'll be getting what feels like a new computer.

You'll also need a #00 Philips to unscrew the bottom of the laptop and a T6 Torx to move the hardrive screws from the old to the new. The screws are special and needed to properly hold the new SSD in place.

I did the same upgrades for the same reason this month. Got the Kingston one on amazon for under $50 I think. I can now push off the upgrade itch for another 18 months or so.

Quote
from darksiderising
:

I recently (1 mo) installed one of these in my late-2009 Macbook Pro (very similar to yours) and it's been amazing. If you're still at the stock 2 or 4 GB RAM, go to the max of 8 GB while you've got the bottom of the laptop taken off. For ~$200 you'll be getting what feels like a new computer.

You'll also need a #00 Philips to unscrew the bottom of the laptop and a T6 Torx to move the hardrive screws from the old to the new. The screws are special and needed to properly hold the new SSD in place.

My Windows 8 "killed" (took second HDD off line and overwrote a boot partition) all operations systems (XP & Win7) on my computer recently so I had to reinstall Win 7 to a separate 320Gb drive to disable Windows 8 installation.
I'm just wondering if is it possible to migrate Win 7 from 320 Gb HDD to 250Gb SSD or I have to reinstall everything again?

P.S Got already my shipping confirmation and a tracking number. Just 40 min later after I ordered it.

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